Bold predictions for the rest of the 2023-24 NBA season

Steph Curry famously became the first-ever unanimous MVP back in 2015-16. Nikola Jokic will become the second this season. Jokic has a lot working in his favor. Most importantly, he’s probably going to be a top-20 player of all-time (maybe even better), he’s in the middle of his prime, and he’s having arguably his best season (27.5 PPG, 13.1 RPG, 8.9 APG with 57.9 field goal percentage). On this pace, he would also reset his own Player Efficiency Rating record (32.85) with a PER of 33.79. Lastly, full transparency voting for NBA awards has led to more groupthink, which led to him not winning the MVP last season, but will also lead to those same voters coming back to Jokic to avoid the same embarrassment as last postseason.

Leaps by great young teams usually make the leap a little sooner than everyone is expecting. Think the 1994-95 Orlando Magic, or the 2011-12 OKC Thunder, or 2014-15 Golden State Warriors. Well, be ready for the 2023-24 OKC Thunder to make a similar leap this year. And get ready for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to get some serious MVP consideration as the best player on possibly the best team in the Western Conference (they’re currently in second with an 11-4 record. SGA has the numbers (30.4 PPG, 6.3 APG, 6.1 RPG, 2.4 SPG with 54-36-93 shooting splits) and the killer late-game swagger that is easy to appreciate. 

This Rookie of the Year reminds me of the LeBron James-Carmelo Anthony race from 2003-04. Both were destined to be great – LeBron was a better overall player and prospect, but on a bad team; Melo was a really good scorer on a playoff team. LeBron ultimately won the award, and rightly so, but it was a great race. Fast forward to this season, Victor Wembanyama is in LeBron James’ situation and Chet Holmgren is in Carmelo Anthony’s situation (albeit even better). This time around, however, the better prospect is going to come in second. Wemby has (18.8 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 2.5 APG, 2.6 BPG and 1 SPG on 43-28-81 shooting) and will finish with more impressive raw numbers, but Chet will have far better efficiency on similar enough numbers (17.1 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 2.5 APG, 2.3 BPG and 0.9 SPG with 56-43-88 shooting splits through 15 games), plus be a key contributor for a contender. 

The Celtics currently have the NBA’s best record (13-4) and net rating (plus-8.5). Their starting five – Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday – is the best in the NBA and the core players in that lineup are in their respective primes. And the stats back up the fact that they are an elite unit (plus 27.7 points per 100 possessions). These are all indicators that Boston will win 60-plus games and finish with the best regular season record in the NBA. 

The Pacers have the fastest pace in the league and will parlay that into the highest offensive rating per 100 possessions in NBA history (current record is held by the 2022-23 Kings, which were at 119.4 points per 100 possessions). With the best look ahead connector in the league, Tyrese Haliburton, surrounded by floor spacers like Buddy Hield and Myles Turner, and athletic fast-breakers like Obi Toppin and Bruce Brown, the Pacers will easily breach the 120 points per 100 possessions mark – in fact, they’re at 122.6 points per 100 possessions through their first 16 games. 

118 points per 100 possession puts a team in the top-10 all-time for offensive ratings. Right now, the Pacers (122.6), 76ers (121.5) and Hawks (119.5) are all on pace to break the current record. The Bucks are tied for the record at 119.4. And then the Mavericks (119.0), Suns (118.7) and Thunder (118.2) are all on-pace for top-10 marks. I’m guessing that the Celtics (117.7) also end up above 118 points per 100 possessions as well. Offense is as efficient as possible, and the NBA is as offensively-talented as it has ever been.

If you average 26 PPG, 12 APG and post 50-40-90 shooting splits, and lead your team to the best offensive rating in NBA history, which is what Tyrese Haliburton is doing right now, then you deserve to make First-Team All-NBA. Pretty simple. He’ll join Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Joel Embiid, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

The Ant-Man is making his leap into superstardom this season, and he’s doing it at a high level on both ends of the court. On offense, he’s averaging career highs in PPG (26.2), RPG (5.9), APG (5.0) and all shooting splits (46-38-86). If that weren’t enough, he’s also one of the defensive catalysts for the team with the best defensive rating in the league, and the top record in the Western Conference. 

The Warriors are a bottom-seven team in the NBA if Steph Curry is out (and probably league-average as currently constructed when he does play), so he better play at least 70 games – something he rarely has been able to do – or else Golden State is kaput. And the Clippers are going to be in trouble if any of their three stars (Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden) miss significant portions of the season – which Kawhi and PG have been prone to do). 

After a stellar 2022-23 season –  one in which they had the best defensive rating and second-best net rating in the NBA – the Cavaliers have stumbled out of the gates this season and are currently sitting at 10-9 (eighth in the East) with the 12th-best defensive rating and the 20th best net rating. They have all of the pieces on paper, but the team hasn’t meshed like you’d think. Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are excellent, but they seem to be better when the other doesn’t play. Evan Mobley has plateaued a bit. Jarrett Allen is still struggling after the ugly playoff performance last season. Max Strus and Caris LeVert have been great, but neither moves the needle enough to get this team out of its funk.

How ironic would it be if the 76ers finally made it past the second round of the playoffs after the James Harden fiasco this offseason? Tyrese Maxey will win the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award. Joel Embiid win the scoring title for the third straight season while doing his best Nikola Jokic impression by averaging nearly seven APG. And Daryl Morey will use the assets acquired from the Harden trade to land another impact wing like Alex Caruso or Jerami Grant. It will culminate in the team upsetting the pesky Miami Heat, who will have once again taken out the Bucks on their way to an improbable fourth Conference Finals in the past five seasons, on their way to the championship where they will square off against… 

Hey, these are bold predictions, remember. Obviously, the Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets are the clear favorites in the Western Conference so long as the best player in basketball is healthy. And teams like the T’Wolves, Thunder and Suns all have been much more impressive than the Lakers thus far. But…in this bold prediction reality, I’m envisioning a similar elite defensive effort by Anthony Davis and the Lakers down the stretch, and a fully healthy LeBron James (recall, he was dealing with a foot injury all postseason that robbed him of any explosiveness). In addition, Rob Pelinka makes the right deal – unclear what that is at the moment because the Lakers are so injury-riddled, but Kyrie Irving, Jerami Grant, Alex Caruso and Malcolm Brogdon would all be ideal fits – and LA makes a run to the title. A lot of ifs, but it’s not impossible!

Joel Embiid absolutely owns Anthony Davis, but Playoff AD is the best defensive player in basketball (though he still leaves a lot to be desired on the offensive end every other game), so this series will come down to whether LeBron can rev the engine enough to replicate the player he was in the Bubble Finals. I believe he still can – if LeBron James gets to another Finals, he ain’t losing. He’ll run the entire tank empty, and then some. In fact, he’ll go so hard that he’ll announce his retirement after the clinching game (and un-retire in the summer right before the NBA Draft), giving the Lakers their second title in the LeBron-AD era…that is…

Here’s the contingency…if the Thunder, who have 37(!!!) first-round picks between now and 2030, make a big move at the deadline – say they trade for Mikal Bridges or Myles Turner and Buddy Hield – then they’re going to shock the world and win the title. If any organization understands the brevity of a championship window, it’s the Thunder, given what happened back in 2012. If I were Sam Presti, I’d be looking at SGA playing like an MVP candidate, Chet Holmgren playing like a future star, Jalen Williams and the rest of the cast all looking great, and I’d be pushing the chips now.

The Bulls are a miserable train wreck of a team this season. They have no chance of making the playoffs and should be putting up a For Sale sign in front of every player on their roster. Seriously, they don’t have a single player to build around. The most impactful player on their team is no longer DeMar DeRozan or Zach LaVine, it’s Alex Caruso, who is one of the best defenders in the league and a great connector on offense. He’s on one of the best contracts in the league – unlike DeRozan, who is a free agent next summer, or LaVine, who is on one of the ugliest contracts in the league – and will have a bevy of contenders lining up for his services. Look for Caruso to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of two unprotected picks.

The NBA is so loaded with talent that there are at least a dozen, maybe more, teams that can talk themselves into making a deep run in the playoffs and, thus, will be buyers at the trade deadline. Conversely, there are at least eight teams that already have no chance at the playoffs and will definitely be sellers. There’ll probably be a few more by February too. That means we should have a very active trade deadline. Players like Alex Caruso, Malcolm Brogdon, Gordon Hayward, and Jordan Clarkson are on bad teams and will almost certainly be dealt. Don’t be surprised if even more impactful players like Jerami Grant and Pascal Siakam change teams as well. 

Whether it’s Donovan Mitchell, Lauri Markkanen, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson or someone else (Kyrie Irving?), you just get the sense that some seismic trade is on the horizon. Mitchell seems destined for a bigger market, and the Cavs could get a major return if they dealt him this season. Markkanen might be interested in competing for a playoff team, which the Jazz don’t project to be for a few years. And we all know that Pelicans’ executive David Griffin won’t be afraid to swing for the fences when his back is against the wall (see, David Blatt’s firing). 

So long as Kevin Durant and Devin Booker are healthy, the Suns will easily be a contender. However, if Durant misses his customary 25-plus games  – something he’s done in all three of his post-Achilles tear seasons – the Suns will plummet down the standings as the entire burden of carrying a team full of minimum contract players will fall upon Devin Booker (Bradley Beal has opted to WFH this season). Booker can handle this burden, to an extent, but both Durant and Booker have to be fully healthy for this team to have any shot in the playoffs. Putting this much of a regular season burden on the two of them will come back to bite them.

Much like last year’s Cavs, the Magic have surprised the entire NBA through the first quarter of the season and currently sit at number two in the East with a 13-5 record. Like the Cavs, the Magic are doing it with their defense (second in the NBA in defensive rating), which has led to their having a plus-6.5 net rating per 100 possessions (Cavs finished last season at plus-5.6). The Cavs finished fourth in the East last season with 51 wins, and that seems like a possibility for the Magic if they can continue to defend like they have thus far. However, in the playoffs, their youth and inexperience will show, and they’ll have an early exit from the postseason, but plenty to be exited about moving forward.

The Pistons are in the midst of a horrific losing streak (16 games in a row at the time of this slideshow), and it’s about to get a lot worse. They started the season 2-1, but have lost every game since. Monty Williams seems to be the wrong coach for this extremely raw, extremely unbalanced roster. That said, I expect enough improvement from the likes of Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson that this team will eventually start playing semi-competitive basketball by the last quarter of the season. The Wizards (3-15), on the other hand, do not have any talent and will probably trade their only decent players this deadline. They will finish with the NBA’s worst record when it’s all said and done.

Did you know that De’Aaron Fox is averaging 30.7 PPG right now? He’s only appeared in 12 games thus far, but that would currently put him in fourth place and only 1.3 PPG behind Joel Embiid for first. Fox is clearly the Kings best player this season, and is the fastest player in all of basketball, so he can get anywhere he wants on the court. He’s finally starting to develop a consistent three-point stroke (36.3 percent), and I suspect he’ll be in plenty of shootouts this season, so he’s my pick to lead the league in scoring.

As you’ve probably noticed, there hasn’t been much mention of the Mavericks in this slideshow despite the fact that Luke Doncic looks spectacular through his first 17 games (31.1 PPG, 8 RPG, 7.9 APG with 49-39-77 shooting splits) and has the team out to a solid 11-6 start. Unfortunately, Dallas’ defense, which is ranked 23rd, will be their undoing. The team will make the playoffs, but an early exit will push Doncic to the brink and, in the wake of Mark Cuban selling his majority stake of the team, he’ll request a trade and set off the craziest bidding war for a superstar the player the NBA has ever seen.